Obama’s Mideast Juggernaut Will Continue To Roll

Even as political commentators speculate that the power of the Obama presidency has been severely curtailed as a result of the Republican victories in the House along with increased GOP representation in the Senate, the Obama/State Department juggernaut continues to grind away at Israel’s security and sovereignty.

Only Jewish Americans of the J Street stripe can find any solace in such a state of affairs.

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There is mounting evidence that the Obama administration has floated a suggestion that Israel cede the Jordan Valley and areas of Jerusalem, the Jewish people’s eternal capital, to the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians and lease it back from them for a number of years. Israel, by agreeing, would teeter ever closer to the edge of a frightful abyss from which it will fall into national oblivion.

If Prime Minister Netanyahu accepts such a formula, merely quibbling over the length of the lease, he will have repeated his previous sin of abandoning Hebron, Judaism’s second holy city after Jerusalem. Indeed, it would be an even more grievous and calamitous sin on his part and on the part of all Jews – Israeli or otherwise – who would agree to accept such a betrayal of those brave and heroic Jews who shed their blood for the rebirth of the Jewish state and the generations who prayed for the return to Zion.

No doubt the pressure from Obama and Co. is brutal beyond measure. Threats by White House to withhold U.S. veto power against the relentless Muslim and Arab anti-Israel resolutions in the UN Security Council must weigh heavily upon Netanyahu. But to keep trying to square the Obama circle and gain time merely encourages the president to push harder.

As Caroline Glick recently wrote:

By accepting the legitimacy of this proposal, Netanyahu is telling Israel’s supporters abroad that the Palestinians are right. Israel belongs to the Arabs more than it belongs to the Jews. With this message, the only thing supporters of Israel can do is encourage the Israeli government to make territorial concessions that are suicidal for the country. This disastrous belief has been engendered since the inception of the Oslo process in 1993. Its deleterious influence abroad is evidenced by the flood of statements over the years by Israel’s supporters claiming that Israel must vacate Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights.

But does anyone who knows anything about Islam truly believe that by abandoning Judea, Samaria, the Jordan Valley, the Golan and parts of precious Jerusalem – each and every centimeter containing inextricable roots in biblical and post-biblical Jewish history – Israel will ever satisfy the Arab/Muslim world?

No. The reality is that Islam and its followers will never accept a Jewish state in land previously conquered by Muslim force of arms in the name of Allah. If Israel shrank to one downtown city block in Tel Aviv, there still would not be peace for the Jewish state. This reality escapes members of J Street, the Kadima party, Peace Now and assorted other liberal and left-wing Jews.

Such types were not dismayed by Obama’s colossal $60 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. They readily accepted the disingenuous claim by the administration that the highly sophisticated and lethal weapons were meant to deter Iran from gaining hegemony in the Persian Gulf and Middle East.

The weapons will inevitably be used not against Iran but against Israel.

It might be pertinent to refer to a letter by Amit Bole in the Wall Street Journal of November 5. Titled “Don’t Tell Us Indians About Pakistan,” the writer takes to task the Journal’s Bret Stephens who had earlier suggested that a well-armed Pakistan with strong ties to the United States would not threaten India.

As the writer rhetorically asked, “Remember the U.S.-supplied Saber Jets and munitions used by [Pakistan] in the 1965 and 1971 wars? We do. If you give the Pakistanis conventional weapons, including battle tanks (of doubtful tactical value in the mountain ranges of Afghanistan), they will be used at some point against India . So don’t tell us this is good for us, and don’t kid yourselves that just because you’re bribing them they’ll eschew their brothers-in-religion . What the U.S. has been fighting for 10 years, the Indians have been struggling with for over 1,200.”